


three times a habit

by bibliomaniac



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: M/M, Misunderstanding Lasagna, POV Second Person, all of whom are Damien, basically dadsona/you fall in love with three different people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-10 02:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11681835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliomaniac/pseuds/bibliomaniac
Summary: You haven't had a single crush on anyone since Alex, so you're really confused as to why you now have a crush on three different people.Except they aren't so different, and you sure aren't the only one who's confused.





	1. Chapter 1

You’re really not certain how, after years and years of refusing to date or find anyone other than your late husband even remotely attractive, you’ve managed to develop a crush on not one, not two, but _three_ individuals over the course of a month.

You stare at the television without really registering what’s on it (it’s Black Collared Minds, that one about the extremely smart dog who’s brought in as a special consultant to help with the Worst Crimes Unit, for the record, but the point is that you don’t know that) and think through the series of events that got you into this situation.

Okay. First, you move with your daughter Amanda to a different house on the other side of Maple Bay. Check. 

Second, you meet your neighbors. Well. ‘Meet’ is a generous term. Joseph, the really straight-laced one, invites you to a barbecue, and the day of, you send Amanda out to do reconnaissance while promising that you’ll come later. Instead of coming later, you watch the events through your window and hate yourself for your social anxiety. During this time, you see an incredibly handsome man in incredibly accurate period clothing. You also see him wave goodbye to everybody after a while, then watch him walk back to his house slash manor slash estate with someone who you’re guessing is his son. Which…you do not do because you’re creepy, but because you’re curious, which is, you know. A very different thing, so.

(Amanda didn’t even get mad that day, which is almost worse than when she gets mad, because then you know that she’s feeling bad for you, and how pathetic is it that your own daughter pities you?)

The next day, you get a letter in the mail. It’s long, and you don’t have it memorized—now _that_ would definitely be in the realm of ‘creepy’—but the sum of it is that the handsome neighbor you observed the other day noticed you observing and wanted to introduce himself. He signs it with D. Bloodmarch, and a small, long-dormant part of you wants to rub your thumb over the name, like it’s a precious treasure. It’s not that you have a connection to this guy or anything. Obviously, you barely know him. But the truth is, you interact with the outside world so rarely that you really appreciate any attempts made at bringing you closer to it, even if it’s just a wax-sealed letter slipped through the mail slot. 

Anyway. Check that one off, too.

Third, you make an account on a forum at Amanda’s insistence. According to her, it’s just a group of people who talk about their experience as single parents, which sounds fine. Or that’s what you tell her anyway. Honestly, it sounds terrifying, but you want so badly for her to stop _looking_ at you like that. She watches you over your shoulder as you write an introductory post, then claps you on the back.

“Ow, Amanda.”

“Please, that was nothing. You should feel the strength of my back claps when I’m not being restrained by iron.”

“Kid, you know we put those magic shackles on you for a reason. You’re too strong to be unleashed upon this world otherwise.”

“But Daaaaaad, how am I supposed to save us from Doctor Dreadful if I’m not at my full power?”

“You may be the Chosen One, but you’re still my daughter, and what I say goes. You don’t get to go Saiyan until you’re twenty.”

You continue to banter comfortably until the tone that indicates you’ve got a new email rings out.

She brightens. “Ooh! I bet you got a response to your post.”

You look distastefully at your email. “Or it could be the daily picross,” you hedge hopefully.  “That’d be nice.”

Amanda reaches over you to click on the email. “Or it could be exactly what I said it would be,” she says pointedly. “See, this guy dbnevermore says welcome to the forums and he’d love to answer any questions you have about the whole process.”

“I don’t think he could answer all of my questions,” you mumble, and Amanda pokes you forcefully. 

“Again, ow.” 

“You deserved it. Respond back to him, okay? He seems nice.” 

You stick your tongue out at her, then begin to type.

Check.

Fourth, that real estate software you’ve been using to fix up a few documents pertaining to the sale of the old house goes on the fritz, and you’re left with an unhappy expression as you call their IT department. Not unhappy because the software is acting up—technology not working well for you is not exactly a new experience—but unhappy because you have to talk to someone about it, and, ugh. _Phones. **Human interaction. Ugh.**_

“This is Damien with Real Real Estate Inc., how may I help you?” asks someone with probably the nicest, smoothest, most attractive voice you’ve heard in a long time.

You stumble. “Um…I…problems. They’re what I have right now. On the computer. Uh?”

To the guy’s credit, he doesn’t comment on the rather impressive slipup. “All right. Can you give me some more details?” 

“I can’t click on anything, and when I try, all of these error messages pop up,” you recite dutifully. “Then it just all shuts down.” 

“Ah, I see. I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have the newest update?”

“Yeah? I think?”

You hear a muttered, “Those imbeciles messed it up again, hm?” and involuntarily chuckle.

The line goes silent for a moment, then, “I am so sorry. You weren’t meant to hear that. I mean…I shouldn’t have said it.” 

“No, it’s all right. I work remotely, but sometimes I want to curse out my team. In as professional a manner as possible, of course. You know, like I’ll compare them to Clippy and let them figure it out on their own.”

A surprised laugh is let out, then quickly muted on the other side of the phone. “Oh dear.”

“Yeah. Anyway, sorry for distracting you from your work. Is it something to do with the update, then?”

“Most likely, yes. I could do some more tests if you’d prefer, but—”

“Nah, that’s fine. I’ll just wait for the next update. I’m sure they’ll patch it up soon.”

“I’ll make sure they do.”

You continue to exchange pleasantries, but just as you’re about to hang up and be done with this surprisingly less-hellish-than-expected phone call, Damien pauses, then says, “By the way, thank you for being so polite today. I’ve had a lot of angry customers today and it’s good to deal with someone so cordial.”

“I’m so cordial I’m basically liqueur,” you say, then curse yourself. Way to be cool, dude. 

But the guy on the other side just laughs again. “Good one. I’ll alcohol you when there’s a new update, then.” 

You snort despite yourself. “That was a reach.”

“My alcopologies.”

You giggle into your palm. “Okay, you’ve redeemed yourself. Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your work. Thanks for your help.”

“Of course. You have a good day now.” 

“You too. Bye.” You hang up, and that’s that. Check.

Those four things are the beginning of something much bigger. More specifically, they’re the start of you having a crush on three guys simultaneously. Even more specifically, it’s how you came to have a crush on D. Bloodmarch, dbnevermore, and Damien. 

(They are, of course, as you will eventually find out in a spectacular manner, all the same person. But you don’t know that right now anymore than you know why a pitbull is barking at some dude in a lineup on the television.) 

(Apparently the guy is guilty, though. Good dog.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for internalized ableism, mention of transphobia and emotional abuse

“Hey, Manda,” you yell in the general direction of the bathroom where your daughter is doing some sort of makeup thing. 

She sticks her head out, revealing a face covered in fake eyelashes. “Yeah?” 

“What’s the correct etiquette for responding to someone who has just revealed to you something very personal online?” You pause. “You look lovely, by the way.” 

She bats her real eyelashes demurely. “Always do. And I guess that depends on how personal and in what context. Give me the deets.” She trots from the bathroom to sit next to you on the couch.

You shield the computer screen from her, frowning. “I don’t know if I should share this with anyone else, which is sort of the _problem_.”

Amanda scrunches up her face, sighing dramatically. “Fine. Just give me the generals, then.”

“Okay. You know that guy who welcomed me to the forum?”

“Yeah. Dude with the Poe reference.”

“That’s the one. He invited me to…” You squint, then sound out carefully, “ _DM_ him—”

“Ooooh,” Amanda says, waggling her eyebrows. You ignore her.

“Anyway, we’ve been talking for a while and I told him about Alex and then he told me how he became a single parent. And I have no idea what to say back to him. I get the feeling ‘sorry dude’ won’t cut it this time.”

“As much as I hate to say it, ‘sorry dude’ rarely does.” She taps her finger on her chin, thinking. “How about a sorry, sans dude, plus a thank-you-for-telling-me-I-understand-how-hard-that-must-have-been?”

“You think that’s enough?” You look doubtfully at the screen.

“I doubt he’s expecting an essay, Pops. People all say the same things when they’re in that kind of situation. It’s easy, it’s more than a little bit trite, and it makes everybody feel worse about themselves, but it’s pretty much the Thing You Do.”

“I can tell you’re capitalizing random words in your sentence again for non-grammatically-standard emphasis,” you tell her, eyes narrowed. “I don’t know how, but I can tell.”

“I’m a child of the Internet, what can I say?” She hops up, throwing over her shoulder, “Anyway, it’ll be fine. I’m going to add some fake nails to my face now.” 

“Good girl. You stick it to the makeup industry,” you say absentmindedly as you look back down at dbnevermore’s message. It makes your heart hurt more than a little bit. Apparently he had been married to a sort of emotionally abusive guy who had flipped out when db came out as trans. That night, he had left behind his job, his life, and his husband to come across the country to live with an old college roommate until he was able to get a restraining order, divorce papers, and a new job that paid for a house near the aforementioned roommate.

While you’re typing up an easy, trite response that’s sure to make both of you feel worse—as recommended by your daughter—your email chimes again. You click into it to find that dbnevermore has sent you another message. He does tend to write really long messages in several parts, so you’re not that surprised.

“I didn’t know until a month after all that that I was pregnant. That was one of the loneliest, scariest times of my life, but I came out the other side stronger and able to be myself, so I don’t regret that it happened, and I certainly don’t regret my son. I think, in the end, loss makes us all that much closer to what we are lucky enough to possess. I suppose what I’m trying to say here is that it is incredibly unfortunate that you had to go through the loss of your husband, but perhaps—not to place too optimistic a spin on it—there are good things for you in the future as well.”

You feel your throat begin to close up. Usually you get pissed off by baseless optimism, but for once it doesn’t feel so baseless.

You scrap your response and write out,

“That means a lot to me, man. Thanks. I still miss Alex every day, and I wish he were here with me to see how wonderful our daughter has become…and, if I’m being honest, to help me be less scared of everything. I wish that so much some nights that I almost forget in the mornings that he’s not here. But maybe I should allow myself to look out for those good things you mentioned as well.

As for your story—I know this means about nothing in the end, but I’m really sorry that happened to you. I don’t know you all that well yet, but I know you didn’t deserve to be treated like that. I’m glad you were able to get away from that jerk though—and for what the opinion of a stranger is worth, I think you’ve ended up great.”

You send the message. A few minutes later, your email chimes once more. The ensuing message is uncharacteristically short.

“Your opinion is worth far more to me than that of a stranger’s. In fact, if you’ll pardon my forwardness, I would like to consider ours a budding friendship.” 

You blink, then type back awkwardly, “sure thing man” 

Frick, you’re so bad at this.

Secretly, though—or, well, probably not so secretly, given Amanda is popping her fake-product-covered head out of the bathroom and raising an eyebrow at the dying whale noise you just made—you’re happy about what he said. You don’t really have a lot of friends. It’s a nice feeling, being able to talk with someone who understands, who doesn’t judge you for rarely leaving your house, or for living your entire life small and scared and missing someone who’s long gone.

He changes the subject after that, asking for advice on dealing with his son, who he loves very much but who also recently attempted to build a brick wall around someone’s kid, and you settle into the much more comfortable routine of commiserating about Kids Doing The Darndest Things.

(See, Amanda? You can do the Internet capitalization thing. You spare a moment or two to feel proud of yourself, until Amanda peeks back out again and sees you looking smug and tells you you have a mustard mustache.

“Maybe I was trying to make a pun,” you say defensively, trying to think of a way to combine the two words unsuccessfully, and she looks at you like she’s the world-weary parent and you’re her particularly dense child.

“No, Pops. No you weren’t.”

You should have raised a child who was right less often, you think bitterly as you find a napkin.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will be another letter from D. Bloodmarch. just trying to mix things up orderwise lol
> 
> writing Amanda is my favorite part of this lol
> 
> also if you're wondering, the roommate he mentions is def mary


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: internalized ableism, awkward situations

It’s about an hour before you get a response of a different kind. Ever since D. Bloodmarch sent you that first letter, you’ve been ‘engaged in correspondence’, as he puts it. You sent out your last letter yesterday, stamped with this cool dragon seal stamp you got from Amazon. He always drops the letter through the mail slot in the door, and while the possibility of him someday knocking on the door and expecting you to open it used to make you anxious, now his presumed presence on the other side of the door is sort of…comforting. He clearly plans to respect your boundaries, and you respect him in turn.

You pick up the letter and carefully open it. His writing is beautiful, as always, and you find yourself smiling as you relax back into the couch and into his words.

Your smile drops, however, as you get to the end. 

_I must confess that while our written correspondence is most enjoyable, I find myself desiring the further pleasure of your physical company. Perhaps, if you are amenable, you might come over for an afternoon tea? I would love to show you my house and my garden. I recognize my selfishness in requesting this, but—_

For the second time this day, you feel your throat start to close up, but this time in a combination of anger and panic. You had thought he was fine with this, that these letters, perhaps, meant as much to him as they do to you, but if he’s asking you to come over to his house, then obviously he doesn't understand you as well as you had hoped.

You don’t realize that you’re crying until the phone rings and you startle, wiping your tears in a frenzy to ready yourself for human interaction.

“This is Damien from Real Real Estate,” comes a chipper voice from the other side. “May I speak to the head of the household?” 

“That’s me,” you say, voice thick. “Though my daughter might protest solely on principle.”

There’s a pause. “I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

The clear concern in Damien’s voice reopens the floodgates, and you start crying as quietly as you can manage. “I’m so sorry,” you say through sniffles. “I swear I usually reserve crying over the phone for solicitors.” 

Another pause, then an uncertain, “Can I help somehow?”

You huff. “That’s kind of you, but I should probably just hang up before I embarrass myself further.” 

“You’re not embarrassing yourself. Crying is a natural response to hearing my voice, based off a survey of several infants.”

This time your exhale is less bitter and more amused. “My daughter used to cry every time she saw my face. My husband would laugh every time it happened, and I think it just reinforced the behavior.”

“Maybe I could talk to your husband instead until you’ve calmed down a bit?” Damien asks, and he sounds so kind while he shoves his foot in his mouth that you have to suppress hysteric giggles.

“He passed away a while ago, actually,” you say, in as level a voice as you can manage.

A muted but still audible string of child-friendly profanity streams through the phone, and you actually do start laughing this time.

“…Don’t tell me you could hear that,” Damien says desperately a few moments later.

“I could, but I can pretend like I didn’t if it would make you feel better,” you offer.

“I am so sorry, on all counts. I swear I just wanted to tell you that the new update is out, not intrude on a private moment and ask to talk to your late spouse,” he says, voice a little helpless. “You can report me to my supervisor if—”

“Jeez, no, I’m not going to do that,” you wave off hurriedly. “You’re fine. Sorry to bring my issues to your work call.” 

“It’s no problem. I’ve had much worse calls in my day.”

You highly doubt that. “Like what?”

“I was propositioned by a lovely senior lady. Several times, actually. She offered to do to me several things that I wasn’t even aware were things. I had to direct her to to my supervisor—”

You snort.

“Who happens to be seventy years old and single—”

“No way this is true.”

“No, it is, and they’re dating to this day. They invited me to an anniversary party once and the lady—her name is Marjorie, she’s really quite nice—proceeded to inform me, sotto voce, that they wouldn’t mind a third person in their relationship.” 

“Dear God. And you wanted me to report you to this supervisor?”

“Oh, he’s retired now. The new one is their third.”

You narrow your eyes at the phone.

“That I’m joking about. The rest I only wish I was.”

You chuckle. “Okay, you’re right. That’s definitely worse.”

“Precisely.” After a moment of silence, Damien says, “Are you sure there’s nothing I can help with?” 

“I’m actually feeling better,” you say quietly, then color. That sounded a lot flirtier than you intended. “Because, you know. I hear there’s an update on my favorite real estate software that will allow me to wash my hands of my old house.”

“Enough to cheer up even the worst of moods,” Damien says lightly, but you think he understands, at least a little bit. “Well, then. Unless there’s anything else you need…”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Excellent. Well, then, have a good day. And, ah…feel better.”

“Thanks.” You hang up, then return to staring at the letter. You feel well enough to not just write a large, jagged ‘NO’ on the back of D. Bloodmarch’s letter and throw it at his house wrapped around a rock, which is admittedly what you were sort of considering. Your feelings are still hurt, though.

You decide to write a much more polite but still pointed letter explaining that you’d prefer to stay in the house, thanks all the same.  You put it through the mail slot, then sink back on the couch.

You’re staring blankly at the shag carpeting when you feel weight on the couch next to you. “Hey, Pops,” Amanda says in that way which means she knows he’s in a bad mood and that she wants to talk about it.

“Hey, Manda Panda.”

“What’s up?” Gentle, but still probing. She learned from the best. You exhale slowly.

“I wish I were different. Better. You don’t deserve this.”

“What, I don’t deserve a dad who loves me?”

You give her a look. “I think you know what I mean.” 

“Yeah, I do, and my rhetorical question remains the same. Look, I know you get bent out of shape about the whole staying-inside thing, and I know sometimes that’s my fault because I try to get you to leave the house. But you know that your problems have nothing to do with whether or not you’re a good dad or not, right?”

You press your lips together and look away.

“You can’t hate yourself for something that’s out of your control right now.” 

You resist the urge to say “I can and I will” by not saying anything, until, “I’m just so scared that I’m ruining you by being like this.” Your voice is as small as you feel at that moment.

“If anything’s ruining me, it’s my love of nachos,” she jokes, then sobers when she feels you tense against her. “Sorry, sorry. Look, I don’t know how to convince you that I’m fine, but I am. I’m fine right now, and I’m going to be fine, and so are you.”

“I remain unconvinced but appreciate the effort.”

“Guess that’s as good as we can get right now. Want to watch My Baby Is An Internet Troll with me?” 

“Sure thing, Panda.” You bite your lip. “You’d tell me if you needed anything though, right?” 

“Huh? Yeah, ‘course, Pops.”

You see her averting her eyes to the television a bit too fast and it hits you like a dagger in the heart. But if she doesn’t want to talk to you about her problems, you can understand why. You’re not exactly equipped to give advice on how to live a good life.

(You can understand, but it won’t stop you from feeling bad about it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not really saying it in-fic bc i haven't decided whether or not he knows yet, but dadsona probably has agoraphobia. technically he can leave the house, but it makes him incredibly anxious, so he tries to avoid it all he can
> 
> the ending of this chapter is a bit wonky but it'll end up tying back into everything so


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for internalized ableism

D. Bloodmarch’s next letter comes early the next morning, full of so many apologies that you might almost think him insincere if you didn’t do the same thing when you accidentally hurt someone.

You sigh as you read the letter. You feel bad for making such a big deal over this, especially because you never really _told_ him that you hate leaving the house, just that you don’t do it often. You can recognize you’re being more than a little bit silly. But you had felt somehow like you’d found—a kindred spirit, maybe, someone who knew you in the way that you read about in stories, by your soul rather than your words.

(…Okay, so maybe you’ve been reading too many old-fashioned romance novels lately, but in your defense D. Bloodmarch recommended them and you’re bored.)

You hear a knock on your door and drop the letter, unwillingly getting up to answer the door—you’d ask Amanda to do it, but she’s out with her friends today. When you open the door, you see the kid you had guessed was D. Bloodmarch’s son a week or so ago.

“Oh,” you say, surprised. “Um…you’re…”

“Lucien,” the kid says with the voice and expression of someone who would really rather not be here. You can sympathize. “My dad wanted me to give you these.”

You look down at his hands and find a bouquet of lovely purple flowers, interspersed throughout with a few white ones that you can recognize on sight as honeysuckle. You blink, then accept the bundle. Is this supposed to be some kind of romantic overture? Because, that’s…nice and all (you can’t really bring yourself to think about how much you think it would be nice because you’re in a Mood), but really weird timing.

The kid looks at your confused face, then down at the flowers. He sighs, clearly aggravated. “Purple hyacinth for feeling sorry and asking for forgiveness. Gladioli for sincerity. Iris for your friendship meaning a lot to him. Honeysuckle means happiness, probably in this case a wish for yours.” 

“Plus they’re my favorite,” you murmur, running your finger lightly over one of the petals. “He remembered.”

The kid looks like he’s about to gag. “Yeah. Anyway, he feels bad, so you should tell him you guys are chill. See ya.”

He turns on his foot and begins to walk away, but you yell, “Hey, Lucien?”

“What?!” He looks downright pissed now.

“Thanks. For bringing this over.”

“Whatever.” He starts slinking off again, then pauses and turns to look at you over his shoulder. “Be careful with him.”

You frown, but nod slowly, clutching the bouquet close to your heart.

Maybe, you think as you look down at the flowers, that kind of soul connection you read about isn’t real. But also maybe genuinely sweet people who want to be friends with you for some reason are, and maybe that’s way more than you deserve anyway, and maybe you should be grateful for that.

You write a letter back to D. Bloodmarch explicitly forgiving him and apologizing for your overreaction, then bite your lip. Should you explain everything? He probably deserves to understand why you overreacted in the first place, right? 

In slightly smaller and shakier writing, you tell him about how ever since the death of your husband, you’ve had an increasingly hard time with…everything, really, but especially social situations. It started small—pretending you didn’t hear when people on the street told you how cute Amanda was, or using the self-serve line at the grocery store. Then it became staying in for the weekend instead of taking Amanda to the natural science museum, no matter how much she asked, because you knew you’d have to talk to the person selling the tickets, and then it became asking to do parent-teacher conferences over the phone and getting a remote position for work, and then Amanda got her driver’s license and started doing errands for the house, and suddenly you didn’t really have a reason to leave anymore, and the house is so secure and comfortable and _safe_. Now even the idea of leaving it makes you start gasping for air that you can’t find, nausea pooling in the center of your stomach, because outside isn’t safe anymore, and when you’re out there in the middle of so much space, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get away, back to your house, back to where everything is okay. There are just too many unknowns, you write, and you hate yourself so much for not being there for Amanda, for making her worry and making her incapable of telling you when she has problems of her own because she knows you can’t even fix your own life and then she’s going to leave and what are you going to _do—_

You stop your frantic writing, then cross out the last bit and write in an apology about having gone off on a tangent about hating grocery stores, which is true but obviously not at all what you had written. He’ll probably be able to see what you crossed out and think you’re pathetic, but you don’t really have the energy to rewrite the letter. You peek at the flowers, in an old Jumbo Slurpee cup in the kitchen, and smile slightly. And maybe he’ll get it, anyway. Maybe he’ll understand.

Yeah. 

You seal the letter and drop it out the mail slot, like normal. About thirty minutes later, while you’re engaged in a rerun of Long Haul Ice Road Paranormal Ghost Truckers—the one in which the ice road cracks and lets out the ghost of their great-grandfather, who was engaged in the same practice, except in a handcart and not a truck—you hear a rustling at the door. 

“Manda, did you forget your keys again?” you call out, opening the door again to let her in.

Except it’s not Amanda. 

It’s D. Bloodmarch, looking very put together (especially compared to your short shorts and college tshirt), and also looking very handsome, and also looking very shocked and more than a little bit pink. 

You do the only thing you can think of.

You slam the door in his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the only correct response to that situation, of course


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for graphic car crash mention, death mention, internalized ableism

It takes a moment before you realize what you’ve done. “I’m so sorry,” you squeak out, turning bright red, which is embarrassing, but fortunately he can’t see it. Because. You know. The door is shut now. 

“It’s fine,” a bemused voice comes through the door. It’s familiar in a way you can’t quite place. “But, if I may ask…why?”

You stay silent as you turn even redder and contemplate how to respond in a way that doesn’t make you sound like the sort of person nobody wants to be friends with. Frick. This is why you don’t talk to people. 

“…Have I offended you that badly?” D. Bloodmarch asks, and his voice is sad now, and that’s just unacceptable.

You open the door, just a sliver, and peer out. He can probably see your decidedly tomatolike complexion now, but you’re willing to risk it. “No, no, of course not. I’m not mad anymore, and I shouldn’t have been in the first place. I just, um, require a lot of mental preparation before talking to people? Especially,” you open the door a bit further and shove your hand through the door opening to gesture at all of him, “incredibly well-put-together people who are kind and attractive and give me bouquets and write me nice letters and whose opinion I value and I’m in _short shorts,_ for Pete’s sakes—”

“I don’t really mind,” D. Bloodmarch mumbles, eyes traveling downwards minutely before snapping back up to your face, wide and embarrassed.

You’d blush, but you’re already doing that, so much so that it surely can’t be healthy for, like…all the other parts of your body that require blood. Hands, for example. Is it just you or are they tingling? Is that normal? Is that bad? Dying by blushing would be an awful way to die. Amanda would make fun of you forever—

Your voice registers in a pitch probably not audible to humans as you say, “All right then. Anyway, I think I’m dying, so it’s been great but I’m going to shut the door now—” 

Your attempt to do just that is thwarted by D. Bloodmarch clasping your hand and saying with heartbreaking sincerity, “I have treasured this time with you, however short, but please know that I treasure your written presence just as much. I’ll do my best to be worthy of it in the future.”

You have no idea what to say to that, so you say, “Cool,” and shut the door once more. A thought occurs to you once the door is closed. “Hey, where do you work?” 

But when you check the peephole in the door, he’s gone, your letter gone with him. Well. You probably were misremembering where you heard the voice anyway. He’d have mentioned something otherwise.

 

* * *

 

 **dbnevermore**  

May I ask a question? It may be a bit personal.

**jumbledwords**

You can ask. Can’t guarantee I’ll have an answer. What’s up? 

**dbnevermore**

Essentially, I have a friend who’s having a bit of a hard time, and it sounds sort of similar to what you have mentioned you go through.

**jumbledwords**

Similar in what way?

**dbnevermore**

You both have some difficulty leaving the house due to anxiety.

**jumbledwords**

Oh. That.

**dbnevermore**

You know I would never ask you to talk about something with which you are not comfortable, right?

**jumbledwords**

Oh, it’s not that. You’re very easy to talk to :) I just can’t really give any advice. 

**dbnevermore**

And you as well, for the record. I was not really asking for advice, in any case, just understanding.

 **jumbledwords**  

I don’t know if I can give that either, but I can at least give it a try.

**dbnevermore**

Thank you. My issue is that they appear to think it affects their relationship with their child negatively, but knowing their child somewhat, I can’t really imagine that being true. They have an excellent relationship, one that I honestly envy somewhat.

**jumbledwords**

Hm. I guess that it depends for everyone, but I definitely worry about it affecting my daughter.

**dbnevermore**

Is that so?

**jumbledwords**

She’s such a strong kid, and she’s been through so much, and I’m really proud of her for it. But I also worry that she might have ended up thinking that she can’t talk about her problems because she’s too busy taking care of mine. Like, for example, she does the shopping, and sometimes it means she can’t go out with her friends, but she’s never once complained. I’ve also noticed her eyes are a bit red lately, but when I press her about it, she changes the subject. 

**dbnevermore**

My son doesn’t talk to me much about his problems either, but I still consider ours a good relationship. Perhaps it is just a ‘teenager thing’?

**jumbledwords**

Maybe, but what if it’s not? How do I fix things for her if I can’t even fix them for myself?

**dbnevermore**

JW, sometimes it is not our responsibility to fix everything, even if we are Dads. Sometimes our responsibility is only to do what we can.

**jumbledwords**

I wish I could bring myself to believe that. Or to go to therapy. Amanda’s been bugging me for ages.

**dbnevermore**

…Your daughter’s name is Amanda?

**jumbledwords**

Oh, shoot. Didn’t mean to let that slip. I trust you with that extremely confidential information though :)

He doesn’t respond after that, but sometimes that just happens with db. You let it slide and resume watching the clock. It’s past midnight, and Amanda hasn’t texted or called. 

You start drumming your feet on the carpet worriedly. It’s not like you don’t trust her, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is to be trusted. What if she got mugged? What if she got kidnapped? What if she got in an accident?

The last one brings back memories that you try your hardest every day to suppress. You don’t think you’ll ever forget that day. You can still remember with an almost morbid precision the way the front of the car was crunched in like a piece of flimsy paper, or the sawdust everywhere on the ground, or the way everything gleamed white and red and blue in the light of the police cars—

You’re pacing before you know it, hands rubbing against each other in an attempt to calm yourself down. She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine, you tell yourself. She’sfineshe’sfineshe’sfine—

The door opens, and you’re immediately flooded with relief and an almost foreign anger. 

“Amanda Ann!”

“Whoa, the middle name and everything?”

You check her over for injuries and find none visible, although her eyes are red again. “What do you think you were _doing_?” you yell. 

She blinks, then checks her phone’s clock. “Oh. Sorry,” she says dully. 

“ _Sorry?!”_ you screech, voice ramping up to definitely-hysterical. “Amanda, you didn’t contact me, I had no idea where you were or what you were doing, and for all I knew you were hurt or gone or dead and—”

“Dad, I’m not in the mood to baby you through your baseless paranoia. I had a bad night. Drop it, okay?” she snaps.

You step back, hand fluttering to come to rest over your mouth.

She takes one look at you, then crumples. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean that. Please, just let me go to bed.” 

“Yeah,” you say dazedly, watching her run to her room and shut the door.

Her words run through your mind on repeat. _She said she didn’t mean it,_ the logical part of your brain reminds you. _She had a bad night. People say things they don’t mean all the time._

You really wish you could believe that voice instead of the one telling you that all of your fears have been true all this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this last bit is set when amanda is coming back from seeing her friends getting nachos without her ftr
> 
> also please do let me know if i'm being disrespectful in any wise and i'll do my best to fix it! i don't have any experience with agoraphobia directly, but i do have ocd, so i'm mostly basing it around my fears from that and my family's reactions to these fears


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: death mention, car accident mention, drunkenness mention, internalized ableism, internalized blame

You can’t fall asleep. Your brain is far too loud. Instead, you listlessly go back onto the forums and browse for a while, then message dbnevermore.

**jumbledwords**

We had a fight the night it happened.

((A few minutes pass, then db responds.))

**dbnevermore**

I beg your pardon?

**jumbledwords**

When Alex went out driving, it was because he…he always did that, when we fought. I would want to fight and fight and fight and he would say that he never wanted to say something he would later regret, so he would go out for a drive. It always worried me because they say not to drive angry, and normally I would try to calm down just so he wouldn’t do it, but that night, I told him just to go drive off and run from it all like he always did. I was so mad that he would never let me get out all of my anger, that I just had to stew in everything until he got back, and then he’d apologize and I couldn’t stay mad because then I’d be the jerk. So I yelled at him, and he went driving, and then some drunk guy went barreling through a stop sign.

**dbnevermore**

…Oh, JW.

**jumbledwords**

I wish I could say that I don’t remember what we were fighting about, but I do. We were fighting about me going out too much and always leaving him with Amanda. I was just so exhausted back then, and I knew he was too, but I would come up with some excuse or other and then just go…out. Usually to the bay to watch the boats. I’d fall asleep on the grass there, and then I’d come back hours later, and he’d just say ‘welcome back’ like it was no big deal, so I told myself it wasn’t. 

**dbnevermore**

JW, it wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?

**jumbledwords**

I guess. It’s just…sometimes I think this is someone’s sick idea of a joke. I went out too much, he died for it, and now I can’t even leave the house for something as simple as an afternoon tea at a friend’s house. I made a genuinely good person feel bad for something that’s my fault, I don’t know what’s up with Amanda but now she’s tired of me, and…you know how you said there were good things in my future?

**dbnevermore**

I stand by that.

**jumbledwords**

If there are, I don’t think I deserve them.

**dbnevermore**

I could tell you how much I disagree with that statement, and I certainly do, but I doubt that will be helpful at this juncture. Instead, consider this: perhaps things just happen. Perhaps bad things just happen, and good things just happen too, and you don’t particularly _deserve_ any of it by the simple virtue of existing. But also, perhaps—and this is the salient point here—we can all do our best as we muddle along to _become_ deserving of that which is good, and to learn from that which is not. 

So, statistically speaking, the remainder of your life isn’t likely to be all bad. There will obviously be bad in it, and you’re going to fight with Amanda and hurt your friends and, yes, likely spend a good portion of your time indoors feeling insecure and small. But in all likelihood there will be good too—times when your daughter loves you and you love her, and times when your friend forgives you for not wanting to leave the house for afternoon tea, and times when your…other friends want to get to know you better just so they can prove how very much you _deserve_ this good. You can either dismiss it all as being something that you cannot have because you said something mean years and years ago, or you can allow yourself to have it and you can allow yourself to move…well, maybe not on, but forward. You can become the father and friend you want so desperately to be, and maybe along the way you’ll find you weren’t so far off the mark in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong here, I can’t even imagine what it must have done to you to lose Alex like that. But I can tell you from my own experience that it’s never going to do you any good to bury yourself under the weight of what you should have done. It’s done already, JW, but the rest of your life isn’t.

**jumbledwords**

…Holy crap, db. What am I supposed to say to that?

**dbnevermore**

You don’t really need to say anything. Just food for thought.

And if, as I hope, you are aided in any way, you can say ‘thank you’. Perhaps by taking that friend of yours up on this afternoon tea :)

**jumbledwords**

Or I could just take you out instead.

((You blanch, staring in horror at your accidental words. Delete! Delete delete delete! Frick there’s no delete button.))

**jumbledwords**

Up! I meant up!

**dbnevermore**

I would be amenable to either.

((You blink slowly at the screen. What? What…yeah. What? Is this some sort of weird sleep hallucination? You take to the keyboard to shut him down, because you didn’t mean that first thing you said, and you’ve only known him for a week and a half, and…))

**jumbledwords**

Maybe once we get to know each other better :)

((Curse your traitorous fingers.))

**dbnevermore**

Well, we already know each other’s worst fears and foibles, and I’ve told you about my bad exes, so we’re a good ways into the first-date checklist already. I guess that means we need to go onto the hard-hitting ones next. What’s your favorite color? 

((Frick that’s smooth.))

**jumbledwords**

I’d say the color of your eyes, but I have no idea what color they are.

((Is this flirting? Is flirting what you are doing right now?))

**dbnevermore**

They’re light brown. Probably not the best choice for a favorite color.

 **jumbledwords**  

I think light brown eyes are lovely.

((You’re totally flirting. It’s 1:30 AM and you are totally flirting with someone you met online a week and a half ago. Amanda would be proud if she weren’t pissed at you and also sleeping, which is something you should be doing right now instead of flirting.))

**dbnevermore**

That’s sweet of you to say, and I don’t believe you for a moment.

**jumbledwords**

No, really! I like brown eyes. They’re always so warm and sincere. Stare into a pair of brown eyes and I dare you not to go into a trance and come out of it having spilled your credit card number.

**dbnevermore**

I’ve always wondered why people do that when they first meet me.

**jumbledwords**

I’ll have to be on my guard when we properly meet, then!

**dbnevermore**

It almost feels like we have.

**jumbledwords**

I have that effect on people.

((And you’re tired, and you have no idea what you’re doing, and you have no idea what to do about Amanda either, but this is simple and nice and for the first time in a long time you feel _wanted_ and _normal_ and not just like the hopeless screwup that other people have been saddled with, so you keep talking and you keep flirting and when you finally fall asleep at 3AM, it’s with a smile.))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the angsty backstory (but not really, i feel like it's important to explore why dadsona blames himself so much for everything in the present day)
> 
> usually i'm really bothered by 'choice' narratives (a la 'you can choose to be happy!') bc they smack of ableism or at the very least a lack of understanding but i do believe that we can slowly either make ourselves better or at least slowly recognize we're not as bad as we think we are
> 
> poor damien is trying really hard to give hints that he's d. bloodmarch because he feels awful about lying and even more awful about someone who (in his eyes) is a bit scared of in-person him but also spills his soul to online him but, unfortunately, dadsona is p oblivious


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for ableist language

“Hey, Pops?”

You wake up with a start. “What time is it?” you ask, words slurred and frantic.

“About thirty minutes before I have to leave for school. I wanted to talk to you.”

You rub the sleep out of your eyes and sit up in bed, yawning. “Yeah, for sure. Come here, bud.” 

You beckon, and she sits on the bed next to you. Hesitantly, she begins, “I wanted to apologize for last night. It’s a long story that I’m not sure you want to hear, but basically I found out all my friends don’t like me anymore, and I was just really mad and scared and sad and I took it out on you and you didn’t deserve it.”

You wrap an arm around her, and she nestles into your shoulder. “No, it’s fine, sweetie. I’m sorry for freaking out at you when you were clearly in a bad mood.”

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t freak out at me on a regular basis,” she says lightly, and you know she’s joking, but you pause anyway.

“I’m going to do my best from now on,” you say after a minute. “To be good for you, and…to be good for me, too. So if that means therapy, or medication, or just trying to learn to be okay with myself, I’m going to try it, okay?”

“What brought this on?” 

“A friend,” you say vaguely. “Anyway, tell me this long story of yours. Let me in on all the latest goss.”

Amanda snorts against your shoulder. “Only if you promise to never, ever say the word ‘goss’ again.”

“Sure thing, Panda.”

She goes through the entire sordid tale, and you ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ and ‘how dare they’ as is appropriate, and at the end she stops for a moment.

“What did they say next?” you prompt, but she looks conflicted. 

Finally, she sighs. “They told me to go home and cry to my crazy dad,” she mumbles, looking away.

You nod slowly. “And then?”

“I told them to go f—sorry, uh, to go jump in a lake?”

“Nah, I think strong language is appropriate in this case. They were very rude, after all.” You wink at her. 

For the first time this entire conversation, she grins. “Well, if you insist.”

 

* * *

 

You take to the Internet to find a therapist in the area who can do therapy over Skype and find one who specializes in anxiety disorders. You leave them a message and turn to that darned real estate software and update it.

The update finishes, but when you click on the icon, it won’t even open.

You can’t even bring yourself to get angry. Shaking your head, you call the customer service line again.

“Hi! I’m Marta with Real Real Estate! How can I—”

You frown without even realizing it. Oh. You probably should have expected you’d get a different person this time. It’s a pity. You enjoyed talking with Damien.

“Hello, Marta. I got the new update for your software, and unfortunately now the software isn’t even opening.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she says, and you start going through the tedious process of troubleshooting.

After a good thirty minutes, she says—voice still incredibly chipper, somehow—“Well, I think I might need to transfer you to my supervisor to get this fixed. His name is Damien Bl—oh, hi, Damien! Good timing.”

“I’m known for my excellent timing, yes,” says a weird voice on the other line, which sounds a bit out of breath. 

“Let me just transfer this to your line,” Marta says cheerfully. “Hopefully you can get this worked out together!” 

You wait patiently for the transfer to occur, and then Damien is on the line properly. “Hello,” he says with…is that…a Russian accent?

“Hey!” You tilt your head. “What’s, uh, what’s up?”

“Just working,” he responds, still with the accent.

You laugh. “No. I mean with the accent. You sound like the little white bat from Anastasia.”

He clears his throat, then comes back with his normal voice, albeit a bit softer. “Sorry. I have…a cold.” 

“…Okay. Sure. Let’s go with that.” He’s obviously hiding something, but it’s probably none of your business. “Anyway, did Marta tell you what’s going on?”

He exhales, and you can almost hear his eyes rolling. “Let me guess. The update again.”

“Got it in one.” 

“I assure you, I have nothing but love for the update team as people.”

You begin to smile. “As people?”

“I know what I said.”

You chuckle. “Fair enough. Anyway, got any solutions for me?” 

“Other than to buy our competitor’s software?”

“Are you allowed to say that?”

“No. Please don’t tell on me. Anyway, in all seriousness, I don’t do much coding anymore, but I’ll take a look for you.” There’s an unnatural pause, then, “Customers! You customers! Our loyal client base—” 

“It’s okay, Damien. I know you’re not hitting on me,” you say, amused.

“Of course not. That would be unprofessional, and frankly strange, given that we don’t know each other outside of this.” He sounds a bit nervous as he says the last bit, but you quickly forget that detail.

“Right. Well, guess I’ll just wait a bit longer to do the paperwork. Thanks for helping your loyal client base out.”

“Of course. Also, are you, ah…doing okay?”

“Hm? Yeah. Why?” As you ask, you realize last time you talked to him, you were crying. “Oh. Right. Yeah, I’m fine. I was just overreacting about something because of, uh, pseudo-Victorian ideals or something?”

“Oh,” Damien says, quiet, like he’s just realized something horrible. 

“Not like it’s your fault! Not the other guy’s fault, either. There was just a bit of miscommunication. And…well, this might be too much information, but I have a couple of deep-seated issues. I think I’m going to work on getting some help for them, though.”

“Oh,” he says again, but this time pleased. “Good for you. That takes a lot of courage.”

“Yeah, thanks. A friend helped me realize that I may not be responsible for some of the things that have happened for me, but I do have some degree of responsibility for how I deal with them.”

“That’s a good way to look at things, in my, ah, completely unrelated opinion.” There’s a bit of shuffling around, then, “Look…this might be weird of me, and you can tell me if it is, but I really shouldn’t be having these conversations at work.”

“Oh,” you say this time, feeling a bit bummed out. “That’s not weird. I understand.”

“The weird part is that I was going to offer you my cell number,” Damien admits sheepishly. “I would love to keep talking to you if you’re open to that idea, or just to be someone you could call when you’re having a bad time again. Just not at work.”

“Will you…get in trouble?”

“Not if nobody knows.” 

You smile quietly at your lap. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t tell. I’d be open to it then, yeah.” 

“Excellent,” Damien says, sounding relieved, then recites a number, which you write down.

(Later, when Amanda comes home, she will wave the number around and yell, “Does my father, perchance, have some game that he has not _told_ me about?”

“No,” you will say. “No game except the game of Ultimate Frisbee that I’m planning on challenging you to in five minutes.”

“We don’t have a Frisbee.”

“The Frisbee is in your heart.” 

“Sounds bloody.” 

“You’re the one who took it there, kiddo, not me. The point is that life has just called you to do overly dramatic Ultimate Frisbee pantomime. Will you answer that call or will you leave it on read?” 

“That’s really not how read receipts work, Pops, but I’m happy to pretend to throw around an imaginary heart Frisbee with you if you’re really that intent on not telling me where you got that number.”

The number will be forgotten by her as you go out in the backyard and do your best to pantomime being smacked in the face repeatedly by a vindictive Ultimate Frisbee, but you won’t forget, and it will stay in the back of your mind like a present to be unwrapped at a later date. 

But for now, you smile and say goodbye, and you stare at the number, and you think how glad you are to have friends.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i absolutely don't want to present therapy as the only or even best option here, because i know it ends up being different for everyone! this just happens to be something that fits in with the rest of the story here, plus something i have a lot of experience with, so;;;


	8. Chapter 8

Two and a half weeks later, you are back where you started: very confused, and beginning to think you might be doing ‘friends’ wrong.

You even ask Amanda to make sure, because you’re admittedly a bit out of practice in the friends department. “Hey, Manda,” you say thoughtfully as you guys lounge on the couch in your pajamas eating cereal and watching Sitcom Shark Tank: Double Laugh Track Edition.

“Yeah?” she responds, or attempts to through a mouth of Frosted Flakes. 

“Is it normal to want to kiss your friends?” 

She stares at you. “You didn’t read my journal, did you?” she asks, voice suspicious, dripping spoon pointed at you like a weapon.

“Of course not. You’re getting milk on the couch, sweetie.”

“It’s seen worse dairy products in its day,” she says dismissively. “Anyway, assuming you’re telling the truth about my journal, I’ll give you a straight answer. I think a lot of people would say no, but—” She takes another bite of cereal and waves around the spoon. “I think they’re not taking into account that kissing can be sensual in addition to romantic or sexual. There are plenty of queerplatonic partners that kiss, for example, and that’s not even counting all the people who kiss for strictly platonic reasons—”

“Let’s say the hypothetical kissing in question is romantic,” you interrupt. “Though I’m very proud of you for being inclusive.” 

“Oh. Yeah. I’d say most people don’t want to romantic kiss their just-friends, no.”

“Gotcha.”

You return to half-watching the show, but her eyes are on you now and clearly suspicious. “Why do you ask?”

“Why don’t you hide your journal better?” you fire back, and she gasps, mock-affronted. 

“You dirty, dirty liar.” 

“Just kidding. You don’t have a journal that I know of, and even then I wouldn’t violate your trust.”

“Correct. If you don’t write down your feelings, they’re not real,” she says, pointing the spoon at you again and flicking milk in your eye. “Advice to live by, Pops.”

“Please tell me I didn’t give you that advice.”

“Nah, it’s a lyric from a song I wrote for my angsty tween pop punk band, Amanda Fights The Man Within.”

“Is that a _pun?_ I’m even more proud of you now.”

“…It wasn’t, but now you ruined it. Also, you’re evading the question. I thought your new therapist told you to talk about things with your support system, which includes me, so spill.”

You sigh, scratching your head. “It’s probably nothing, just…I have these three friends.”

Amanda pauses the show, scooting closer to you, eyes glittering. “Go on.”

“I’ve been talking to them all a lot lately about stuff going on in my life—about therapy, and you—all good things, don’t worry. About Alex, even.” 

“Wow.” She knows how hard that is for you. 

“Yeah. Anyway, they’re all just really sweet and kind and they care about my life and they make bad puns and—”

“And you’re totally crushing on all three of them,” she fills in.

You wrinkle your nose and hedge, “I wouldn’t say that quite yet—”

“Pops, you want to kiss them romantically and you sort of light up when you’re talking about them. You’re crushing hard.” 

You sag against the couch and mumble, “Yeah.”

“Wow.” She’s grinning now, wiping imaginary tears from her eyes. “My dad is all grown up and ready to embark on a healthy polyamorous relationship—”

“No!” You shake your head vehemently. “They don’t even know each other, and they don’t—like me. Like that.”

“You sound like such a cliché right now, holy crap. Have you even tried talking to them about how they feel about you?”

You don’t answer, just looking away, but she probably knows you haven’t done anything of the sort. 

“What’s the worst that could happen, Pops? You said they’re nice guys. They’re not going to drop you over a simple crush.”

“Probably not, but I’m…not. I’m not in a place to be good for anyone right now, Manda.”

She huffs and crosses her arms. “Not this again.”

“Look, it’s not like I don’t think I won’t be there someday! Just…I only managed to get the mail at the edge of the driveway last therapy session with you next to me. And I know that’s a big accomplishment in context, but. I couldn’t go on dates, I couldn’t _be_ there for them when they needed it. And that’s even assuming they felt anything for me, which they don’t. So.” You cross your arms as well.

“You are very stubborn,” she informs you. “But I’ll let it go for now. Who are these three guys anyway?”

“One of them is the guy I met on that forum you set me up on, dbnevermore. The second one is, well, uh, his name is Damien, he’s an IT guy for a software I use—”

“Damien?” Amanda says with an odd look on her face.

“Yeah. And the last one is actually one of our neighbors. I don’t know his first name, but his last name is Bloodmarch. You’re probably familiar with his son Lucien? I think you guys are around the same age.”

“…Right.” She stares at you, still with that same odd look. “Incidentally, you said… _db,_ right? _db_ nevermore?”

“Yeah.”

“Gotcha.” She whips out her phone and suddenly becomes very intensely occupied in some conversation or other.

You gaze at her, then shrug and restart the show.

“Hey, Pops.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to go out for a bit.”

“Where?”

“Animal shelter. I’m starting to feel the lack of a dog in our house very keenly.”

“Amanda, you know we can’t take care of—”

“I know! Just visiting. At the animal shelter. Where there are dogs. And volunteers who help those dogs.” She smiles, but she looks almost…angry?

“Are you okay, honey?” you ask, concerned.

“Aces. Just, uh. Just really need to pet a dog, like right now.”

“Okay. Text me when you get there safely, okay?” 

“Sure thing, Pops. I’ll be back in an hour or two.” She waves, picks up her wallet and keys from the bowl near the door, and gets going.

You’re a bit worried still, but…she needs to be able to do things on her own without you getting on her case about it.

(Plus, you totally get the dog-petting urge. It is a powerful thing and not to be ignored.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've come full circle from the very long flashback, and now we can continue with the story! sorry for the timeskip, but i didn't really want to do daily conversations. just know they've 'all' been talking a lot, and it's a month since they met
> 
> btw, if you're interested in rping your fav dream daddy characters, you should check out [this discord rp!](https://dreamdaddyrp.tumblr.com) i'm going to be on it as damien, and my friend is doing robert. should be a good time!


	9. Chapter 9

Damien Bloodmarch knows for a _fact_ he is doing friends wrong, in about every way it is possible to do so.

Because, well. Fact the first: He hadn’t meant to lie to you, but he did, and he continues to do so every day that he doesn’t tell you that D. Bloodmarch, Damien, and dbnevermore are all him.

He doesn’t even really know how it happened. At first he hadn’t known himself, in fact, that the rather charming people he had met all around the same time were all you, but it was difficult not to put together the pieces after a while. He had _wanted_ to tell you, _wanted_ to be honest, but then he had gotten so scared that you would think less of him for his IT persona, and then that you would be embarrassed to know that you had confessed so much to him as dbnevermore, and then it had just become even harder to tell you as time went by.

The worst part is that he can’t tell you fact the second, which is of course that he is deeply enamored with you—because to do so, he’d have to tell you he’s only one person, and then you’ll get mad, and then you’ll never talk to him again and maybe move away and—okay, maybe he has a problem with catastrophizing too, but it’s so _easy_ to catastrophize in this situation, which is an utter catastrophe.

Speaking of catastrophes, fact the third and final: friends don’t hide from their friend’s daughters. Or, well, that one might be more an of opinion, but he digresses.

“I hear there’s a lying sneak here,” comes a suspiciously pleasant voice from outside of the storage closet in which he is presently hiding. “Goes by a variety of names, apparently _,_ but the one you probably know him by is Damien Bloodmarch?”

Oh, _balls._ She knows, doesn’t she?

“Oh, Damien?” He sends a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that Mary won’t give him up. “He closed himself up in that storage closet when he saw you coming. I’m sure he has a great explanation as to why he’s in there.”

(Great. He knows that tone of voice: Mary is pissed now too, probably because there’s a secret here she doesn’t know about. He’d have told her, too, except she would have just told him to say something to you, and she wouldn’t have understood that’s simply not an _option—_ ) 

The door slams open, and Damien immediately sees two very angry-looking ladies. “Damien, hey,” Amanda says, with a pasted-on smile that looks more dangerous than anything. “Want to explain to everyone here why you’re triple-catfishing my dad?” 

“Sorry, he’s doing _what?_ ”

“I didn’t mean to?” Damien tries.

“No, you’re not going to get away with not including me in this conversation, Dames. You _catfished_ this kid’s _dad? **Three times?**_ ” Mary looks like she’s not sure whether to continue to be pissed or to be a bit impressed.

“No! They’re all me. I mean—” 

“I don’t care if they’re all you, he doesn’t know that!” Amanda interrupts, fury in her eyes. “He’s talking to me, innocent as anything, about the neighbor whose first name he doesn’t know and the IT guy who he only knows the first name of and this guy with a Poe reference from a single parents forum _I_ signed him up for and, funny thing, the initials are the same as yours—” 

“He talks about me?” Damien asks hopefully.

Amanda throws her hands up in the air, yelling, “Oh my _God,_ that’s not the _point!_ The point is—”

“Can somebody please tell me what is going on!” Mary screams, and they all fall silent.

Finally, Damien sighs. “I may have…accidentally met Amanda’s dad three times in three different places, and he doesn’t know that all three of the people he met are me,” he confesses, expression and voice radiating defeat. “Admittedly, I did not know that he was the same person at first either, but now I do and I don’t know what to do about it, especially because I find myself rather enchanted by him.”

“Totally knew it,” Amanda murmurs.

Mary raises a well-manicured eyebrow. “So what you’re telling me,” she says, examining an equally well-manicured nail, “is that you’ve found yourself in the midst of some drama.” 

“I suppose?”

“And what you’re also telling me,” she says, looking up and smiling a smile that promises only bad things, “is that you _deprived_ me of this drama, even though you know how much I love a good intrigue.” 

“Not intentionally,” he says, shrinking.

“Are we even friends?” she demands. “Does our relationship mean nothing to you? I bathed you, nursed you—”

“You did nothing of the sort—”

“Clothed you when you were naked—”

“Put it a different way, _please—_ ”

“Raised you as if you were my own—”

“What on earth are you even _talking about?!_ ”

“This is charming and all, but can we get back to how you’re screwing over my dad?” Amanda says, frowning.

Mary stops her tirade, then steps back, nodding. “I’ll let you talk with him,” she says, uncharacteristically serious. “Don’t go light on him, either. But don’t think this conversation is over.” She walks out of the storage room, leaving Damien and Amanda alone.

Damien deflates when he sees the look in Amanda’s eyes. “Look…I never intended…your father is a wonderful man, and I would never wish to hurt him. If there were a way to go back and tell him, or a way to fix everything now without him shedding a single tear, I would take either of those routes in a heartbeat. But where things are right now, I don’t know how to get to that place, and I’m finding that fear somewhat paralyzing.” 

“You have to tell him,” Amanda says, face inscrutable. “He deserves to know. He deserves so much, and it really pisses me off that he’s allowed himself to take a step forward for the first time in seventeen years, and it’s for someone who’s so afraid of telling the truth that he’s hiding in a storage closet.”

Damien’s face falls. “You’re right. It’s not fair of me to keep this from him just because I'm frightened.”

Amanda levels him with an intense gaze. “Everyone’s scared, you know?” she says eventually, voice thoughtful. “I used to think it was just me and my dad, but now I think it’s everyone. Stuff still gets done, though, and it’s because of scared people who say they won’t let their fear stop them from doing what needs to be done. I think life is made up of those moments where you get to the end of the driveway to pick up the mail even though you’d rather be inside.” She puts a hand on her hip. “If you can’t get to the end of your driveway, metaphorically speaking, you’re not good enough for him. You tell him or I will, and then the rest of it is up to him.”

Damien exhales slowly. “I told your father once…that you have to work to deserve the good life gives you. I suppose it’s my time to take that advice.” He nods once, decisively. “I’ll tell him.” 

“Good.” 

“And Amanda?” he says softly as she turns around to leave. 

“Yeah?” she responds, stopping in her tracks to look at him over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

She stares at him, then turns back around. “Save that for my dad.”

“No, you deserve my apologies as well,” Damien says firmly. “You shouldn’t have had to come here to get me to see sense.”

“No, I shouldn’t have.”

She exits, and then it’s just Damien, alone in a storage room that smells of dog food and regret. 

(Admittedly, he’s probably imagining that second one.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry damien i love u but this has to be done
> 
> blegh this chapter is p rocky


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for anxiety attack

Amanda gets home before long, as she promised, and you try not to look too relieved. You trust her, you remind yourself, and she’s back, so everything is okay.

“Welcome back. How were the dogs?” you ask with a smile. “Should I be expecting bribes over the next week while you fruitlessly attempt to convince me to adopt?”

“I’ll get to you one day,” she says listlessly.

You immediately frown. “Manda, is something wrong? Did something happen?”

“No, it’s…” She sighs, sitting next to you on the couch and slumping back. “I used to think everything was so black and white, but now there’s so much gray I wonder if there’s any black or white at all.”

“That’s pretty heavy, Panda,” you joke, but she just shrugs and looks down at her hands.

You pause, then wrap an arm around her. “What brought this on?”

“I got mad at someone for telling a lie because it’s going to hurt someone when it gets out. But I know now too and I’m not saying anything either because I don’t want to hurt that someone, and I’m starting to wonder if that’s exactly what the first person was thinking, and if I got mad at them, shouldn’t I be mad at myself?” 

“That’s a difficult one for sure,” you say thoughtfully, rubbing comforting circles into her back. “I wish I had a good answer for you.”

She exhales. “You’re a Dad. I thought you had all the answers.”

“Nowhere near,” you say quietly. “Sometimes I wonder if I have any. But I can say that I will always be proud of you for trying your best to do the right thing. And sometimes you might make a misstep, but I think if you’re aimed in the right direction, eventually that’s going to be enough.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You drop a kiss on the top of her head, and she makes a face at you. “Now there’s the slightly emotionally constipated kid I raised in my own image.” 

She chuckles, then falls silent again. “Dad?”

“Mmhmm?” 

“You know I love you though, right?”

“I love you too, Manda. And whatever this is, you’re going to work it out, okay?”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

She’s asleep and snoring loudly on your shoulder when the doorbell rings.

You scowl at the door, but you’re not going to wake up Amanda for this; she’s obviously had an exhausting day. You open it and find…

D. Bloodmarch. You blink, then smile hesitantly. “Hey.”

“Hello,” he says, voice subdued.

“Look, no door-slamming this time,” you say, showing both your hands in an attempt to get him to smile. You are unsuccessful, and your own smile falls.

“Um, are you okay?” you ask, hushed. “I’d invite you in, but Amanda’s asleep, and—”

“Might I offer to accompany you to the end of the driveway?” he asks soberly. “I don’t want to wake her.” 

You squirm uncomfortably, but you don’t know how to refuse him when he looks so ethereal in the moonlight, and also a little bit like he’s going to cry. “Yeah. Sure.” 

You step across the threshold, and D. Bloodmarch holds out his hand. You take it, blushing, and walk with him to the mailbox.

As soon as you get there, he drops your hand like he’s been burned and looks up at you, eyes glistening. “You…captivate me,” he says, and you inhale sharply. “Everything about you draws me in. Your sense of humor, your beauty, your strength. You’re so _good,_ and that’s why I have to tell you.” 

“Tell me what?” you breathe. You’re sure your eyes are wide as you gaze at him.

He takes a deep breath, then begins to speak with the air of someone who has recited this a few too many times. “My name is Damien Bloodmarch. I work at Real Real Estate as an IT specialist, and I also am a part-time moderator on a forum for single parents, where I go by the handle dbnevermore. I’ve known that the three people I knew from the neighborhood, my job, and the forum were the same for about three weeks, and I never told you, and I am so incredibly sorry.”

You stare. “What?” you finally whisper.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again, head hanging, hair falling like a curtain around his face.

“So, what you’re saying,” you say, trying to keep calm, “is that D. Bloodmarch, Damien, and dbnevermore are all _you?_ ”

“Yes.” 

“And that you let me think otherwise for three weeks?”

“Yes.”

“So you lied to me.”

“I…yes. That was not my intention, but yes.” 

You laugh, covering your mouth as hysteria rises in you. “Your _intention,_ right.”

“I assure you I never wanted to hurt you.”

Amanda’s words from earlier come back to you, and you start shaking your head as you back towards the house, heart in your throat. Suddenly all the space, the moonlight and the houses around you and _everything,_ it’s all too small, and you’re not sure whether you’re crying or gasping for air. Maybe both.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and you spare one last look at a man you thought you knew, a man you thought you could _love_. He’s still with his head down like he’s praying to someone. You look, and then you turn around and dash back to the house where it’s safe.

As soon as you’re back across the threshold, you slam the door and collapse to the floor, curled up with your knees against your chest and your fist in your mouth as you scream.

Amanda wakes up, looking around dazedly before her eyes fall on you. “Pops, it’s all right, what happened?” she asks frantically. She must see Damien outside the house through the window, because her eyes narrow and she rushes to your side. “Pops. Pops. _Dad._ Breathe, okay? It’s fine, it’s all gonna be fine—”

You continue to shake your head vehemently, fist red where you bit down on it to keep from making noise. 

“Yes it is, I swear.” She has that tremble in her voice that means she’s about to start crying too, but you can’t _stop,_ you can’t _breathe—_

“Dad, please,” she says, and when you look at her, her face is already wet. “Please, I need you to be here with me, okay? I need you to breathe with me.” She extends her hand to you, and you clutch onto it like a lifeline. 

You try your best to do what she asked, and she smiles tearfully. “Good. Good job. Come on, match what I’m doing. In when I breathe in and out when I breathe out.” 

It takes some time _—_ too much time _—_ but eventually you get to a place where you can breathe normally, albeit a bit raggedly, a place where everything still hurts, but you're okay anyway.

(You’re still holding onto Amanda’s hand, but then again, she doesn’t seem like she wants to let go either.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(
> 
> ugh this was hard to write bc it was difficult to find a balance between dadsona needing to get an explanation and having an anxiety attack? hopefully i found a reasonable compromise, but


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for ableist language, internalized ableism, quick mention of violence at the end

“I’m so sorry, Pops,” she says after a few minutes of silence.

“Not your fault,” you say dully. “Guessing this is what you were talking about earlier?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m also guessing that it’s no coincidence that he only told me after you went to the animal shelter?”

She nods. “I put it together when you were talking earlier, so I asked Lucien where Damien was at, and he told me he volunteers at the animal shelter. I went there and read him the riot act,” she says, pride creeping into her voice.

“Thanks, sweetie,” you say, squeezing her hand weakly. Silence falls again, then, “Guess I’m kind of dense, huh?”

Amanda tilts her head. “You’re a bit oblivious, sure,” she acknowledges after a while, “but that doesn’t make this your fault. He should have told you earlier.”

“Yes, he should have.” You knock your head against the door. “Bet he had a good laugh about the whole thing,” you murmur, more to yourself than anything.

Amanda frowns. “Nah, I don’t think so.” 

“No?”

“He’s obviously a total douche for doing this to you, but he did also seem to feel pretty bad about it. Also, he called you enchanting.”

You huff, rolling your eyes. “That’s a first.”

“I think that’s just how he talks. Translation: if he hadn’t screwed up majorly, he’d want to screw you in a different way, you dig?”

You raise an eyebrow at Amanda. “I dig, but you shouldn’t have said it.” 

“It’s only the truth,” she says with small smile. “You okay?”

You think over that question, then respond, “I think I will be.”

“Good.” She squeezes your hand back, then extracts it carefully. “It’s pretty late. We should probably both get to bed.” 

“Isn’t that my line?”

“Nope. I’m your parent now.”

“Hi, your parent now—” You wrinkle your nose. “Nope. Doesn’t work.” You look down at your hands in mock horror. “I’ve lost my Dad powers.”

“I hear those regenerate after you bake your daughter a pie,” she says, looking at you pointedly and waggling her eyebrows. “Especially when your daughter is the best daughter and clearly deserves mountains of pies—”

You laugh. “I get it, Manda. I always keep the ingredients around for situations just like this. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to being your Dad in no time.” 

“Good,” she says softly. You duck your head, feeling a wave of shame wash over you, but then she’s hopping up and extending her hand.

You stare at her hand as you remember the first time you met Alex, that day on campus when you were sleeping at the base of a tree. He had asked if you were okay, and you had woken up with a start. 

“Fine,” you had said woozily, trying your best to get back to your feet, but then your legs had collapsed under you and you had ended up in a pile, with a bump on your head from where you had hit it on the tree. You had cursed, both from the pain of your head and of making a fool of yourself in front of a hot guy, then looked back up at him dolefully. “Sorry. That was awkward.”

He had laughed, clear and loud and wonderful, and put his hand out for you to take. “Hey, man, we all need a little help sometimes,” he had said. 

You take her hand and smile quietly. Yeah. He was right, as always. “Manda?”

“What’s up?” she asks, pulling you to your feet. 

“You’re so much like your dad. Alex, I mean. And he’d…he’d be so proud of you. _I’m_ so proud of you.”

“You always get like this when it’s late,” she says, embarrassed.

“I mean it, though.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” She smiles back at you. “Thanks.” 

“No problem.”

You part ways, and as you lay down to go to sleep, your head is filled with Alex and regret and shame, but also gratitude for your daughter, and happiness that you’ve managed to get this far, and a quiet calm that tells you you’ll get past this too.

Your last thought before you go to sleep is of how the moonlight shone off of Damien’s hair as it hid his face and the tears you could hear in his voice when he told you he was sorry.

Days pass without any word from or sight of Damien. You almost expect another ‘sorry’ bouquet, but you’re glad there isn’t one. You don’t really need to hear that he’s sorry again. You know that already.

You’ve been thinking a lot about the whole situation, and you honestly don’t know what to think anymore. You’re mad that he lied to you. You feel like an idiot for not figuring out sooner. You wonder why he didn’t tell you, why he let you make a fool of yourself when he _knew_ that was one of your biggest fears.

But at the same time, you know he feels bad about it. You know, better than anyone, that fear of hurting someone can be paralyzing, and that he probably didn’t want to hurt you, probably didn’t know how to tell you. Plus, you miss talking to him—about your worries, about your hopes, about mundane things like how you can see Joseph giving your lawn the side-eye every day the grass grows longer and more unruly. You miss laughing with him and joking with him and learning about him and having him lend you his strength. You just…miss him, and you don’t know how to make that stop. 

You don’t know how to fix things, though. You don’t want to say sorry for overreacting, because you don’t think you did. You don’t want to go to his house and say you forgive him, because you don’t know if you have. All you know is that you miss him, and you’re exhausted from all of the conflicting feelings roiling within you.

Even more days pass, blurring into a haze of work and TV and longing, and nothing changes until Amanda punches Lucien in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> already started writing the next chapter, so that should be out by the end of the day
> 
> also please note the updated chapter count! this should be ending in either two or three chapters--going with two for now, but no guarantees


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: violence mention, ableist language, heavy internalized ableism, familial fighting, death mention, anxiety attacks

You get a call in the afternoon and answer it with slightly less trepidation than normal—your therapist and you have been working on phone calls—and listen with increasing fear as they ask you to come in. 

“Oh, I actually, um—I have some difficulty leaving the house, and—”

“Oh, yes, I see that in Amanda’s files. Never mind. Then I’ll just give you the details over the phone—Amanda’s been suspended for three days.”

“What?!”

“She reportedly got into a heated argument with another student named Lucien Bloodmarch, then, according to observers and her own admission, punched him in the nose. It’s not broken or anything, so there are no medical costs to worry about, but we can’t have one of our students hurting other students without repercussion, you understand?” 

“Yes, I understand,” you say dazedly. “Is this—will this affect her college admissions, or—”

“She’s already admitted and this is a first time, low-level offense, so I doubt it, but it certainly is not a behavior we’d like to see a repeat of.”

“Of course. Do you need anything else from me, or can I help with anything?”

“We’d like you to talk to Amanda, obviously, see what led to the offense. She’s not answering any of our questions.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Is she coming home now?” 

“I think that would be a good idea.”

“Okay, just—” You bite your lip. “Tell her to calm down before she gets in the car, if you could. Tell her to drink some water or something.”

There’s an odd pause, but the woman on the phone—vice principal or something, you think—finally says, “Sure.”

“Thanks. Let me know if there’s anything else you need from me after this.”

“I will. Thank you.” 

You wait anxiously for her to get home, and as soon as you hear the door open, you stand up and face Amanda.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Pops,” she says, but her foot is tapping like it always does when she’s agitated. 

“What happened?”

She looks away, foot still tapping, mouth set.

“Amanda.”

“Lucien…he came up to me all mad because his dad had ‘told him everything’ and I guess he’s been really moping around and feeling awful about things and super out of it or whatever, and I told him serves him right, and he said—” Her foot is tapping even faster, hands clenching into fists rhythmically, unclenching, then clenching again. “He said that it wasn’t his dad’s fault you’re an oversensitive _freak—_ ”

“Oh, Amanda,” you say, deflating. 

“And then I punched him, and I’m not sorry,” she says, turning her nose up. “So you can get mad at me or whatever, but—”

“I’m not mad.”

“What?”

“I mean…don’t punch people, especially not when you’re going for a college scholarship. Not a good idea. But I’m not mad.” 

She frowns, looking down. “Huh,” she mumbles. “That’s not what I was expecting.”

“Well, I’m full of surprises. Although…he’s not exactly wrong,” you say, going for a joking tone. 

Amanda’s eyes snap to yours. “What did you just say?” she asks, voice going high-pitched and dangerous. 

“Oh—I mean—well, I just mean, I kind of am…you know.”

Her nostrils flare as she glares at you.

“Oh, come on, Amanda, you know I’m not _normal,_ and I’m trying my best and everything, but that doesn’t make me—” You spread your hands helplessly. “It doesn’t make me like the other Dads who can go outside and, I don’t know, give their kids a good life.”

She takes a deep, shaky breath, then says, struggling to keep her voice level, “You know what? I’m done.”

You blink at her, confused. “Huh?”

“I spend so much time defending you. You don’t even _know_ what all the kids say about me, about _you,_ about—everything, and I always defend you, and I am so tired of defending you against _yourself._ Pops, other people have problems! Our neighbors all have problems. I have problems. Even Alex, who you are intent on idealizing into nothingness, had problems! Having a problem doesn’t make you a freak or abnormal, it makes you _just like everyone else.”_

You stare at her, eyes wide.

Her voice is hysterical now. _“_ You know what’s freakish, is me trying so hard to make sure you feel loved and like you’re doing a good job as my dad, and you spend just as much time shooting me down like my opinion doesn’t mean _crap_.” 

“I’m…” you whisper, clearing your throat, face crumpling. “I’m sorry.”

“You always are,” she says bitterly. “You’re sorry, and then you keep saying and doing the same exact things. I’m done with it. And you know what? I bet Alex was too.” 

You gasp, and a sob rips its way out of you. “Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare say that.”

“Why not?” she asks, walking to the door and throwing over her shoulder, “I bet it’s what you believe anyway.”

“Amanda—” 

She takes the car keys out of the bowl by the door. “Nope. See ya.”

“Amanda Ann, don’t you dare—”

The door slams, and you stand looking at the spot where she was just a few moments ago, stunned into inactivity.

Then you realize. This is exactly like last time. “Amanda,” you say brokenly, words echoing emptily in the room. “No.”

You fall to the ground, but this time there’s no hand to help you back up.

_she’s going to die and it’ll be all your fault, all your fault for being such a mess, she’s going to die angry and hating you, and you’ll regret it all your life—_

You’re already gasping for air on the ground, nauseous and clawing at your hands like externalizing the pain will make your internal pain less somehow, when out of nowhere, a resolve solidifies in you. It feels foreign and familiar all at once, and it feels like Amanda squeezing your hand, and it feels like Damien guiding you to the mailbox, and it feels like Alex's laughter, pure and strong and simple.

_No. That won’t happen, because I’m not going to let it happen. Not again. Not ever again._

You stand without help, wobbling on your feet, and you walk to the door, still hyperventilating. You open the door.

And then, terrified but somehow still stronger than you’ve ever felt, you step across the threshold and go outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lied it's going to be two chapters after this lol
> 
> i feel like both of them needed to get this out of their system so. sorry for the angst but it's important here, i think?


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for ableist language, mention of continued anxiety attack, negative self-image

You already know what you have to do. The car is gone already, and you only really know one person in this neighborhood.

Sucking up your pride, each step away from the house an agony, you walk in the direction of Damien’s house. 

Halfway there, you start getting lightheaded from the hyperventilation and have to rest. When you open your eyes, you’re suddenly struck by how very _big_ everything is out here, how much _space_ there is. You gulp. Is the world going fuzzy at the edges or is that just you? Probably just you, yeah. 

You take another step, then stumble. You’re worried you’re going to fall, but then you feel a set of strong arms supporting you. You look up to find Damien and go nearly boneless in relief. 

“Oh my,” he says, fumbling as your weight shifts, and his voice is so familiar and welcome that the tears that had abated somewhat over time come back in full force.

“Amanda,” you eke out through gasping breaths. “Please, I need your help, we have to find her.”

His gaze goes sharp, and he immediately starts steering you in the direction of his house, which has a car parked outside of it. “What happened?” he asks as you walk. 

“We had a fight. She drove off,” you say simply, and you’re grateful that you don’t have to explain any further. He just nods understandingly.

“I saw her leave, but I didn’t know the circumstances or I would have called out to her.” He pauses, pain flashing across his face. “Though I doubt my interference would have been welcome.”

You don’t say anything to that, just concentrate on moving your feet and getting to the car without tripping again.

He pulls a pair of car keys out of his cloak and unlocks the car. “All right, get in. Where would she have gone?”

“I don’t know,” you say, hysteria beginning to rise again. “I don’t know, it could be anywhere—”

“Breathe.” He puts a hand on your back, the touch lingering a bit too long. “We will find her, and she will be okay. I swear it.” 

“How do you know?” you burst out bitterly. “You don’t! Nobody knows what’s going to happen or when—” You clap a hand over your mouth to keep a sob from escaping. “When you’re going to lose someone. You can’t know.” 

Damien responds without missing a beat. “Perhaps I don’t know, but I do believe.”

He sounds so confident, certain in a way that you don’t think you’ve ever been. “Believing doesn’t do anything,” you mumble, a bit cowed. 

“It’s a lot better than living in despair all my life, though,” he murmurs, looking away, then shaking his head. “We should get going if we’re going to catch her.”

You get in the car and Damien starts the car. “I saw her go left, I think,” he says absentmindedly, and you nod. After that, it’s silent except for the sound of your labored breathing slowly returning to something resembling normal. 

“She was right, you know,” you say after some time. 

“Hm?”

“I spend so much time hating myself for possibly being a bad Dad that I never listen to her when she tells me I’m not. I think...” You stop, lost in thought. “I think it’s easier, in a way. I call myself a freak, and a bad parent, and a bad _person_ , because then nobody can tell me something I haven’t already told myself. It’s safe, you know? But I never thought about how that might impact someone who’s always fighting to prove that I’m good.” 

“When I was raising Lucien, I was always concerned that I wasn’t good enough,” Damien says slowly. “That I was doing something wrong, and that it was because of some personal failing. I think it’s normal, especially as a single parent, to be concerned about whether or not you’re doing a good job. But when it consumes you…” You look over, and you can see he’s biting his lip. “There was one point when I would ask him every day whether I was all right, whether I had done something wrong. It was like a compulsion. When I didn’t ask, I became incredibly anxious, because what if there was something there that I had missed? What if that one day was the turning point where things went horribly and irrevocably wrong?”

You stare at him, and he sighs, still keeping his eyes on the road. You can tell he’s a very careful driver, or maybe he’s just doing that to make you feel better. “I thought I was being considerate, but one day he just—blew up at me. He told me he was tired of making me feel better about myself, that it wasn’t his job to reassure me that I’m a good parent.” Smiling wryly, Damien looks over at you, just for a split second. “He told me if I wanted to be a good parent, it was my job to work to deserve the title.” 

A hint of a smile comes across your face. “You gave me advice that you got from your kid?”

“It’s good advice,” he says, taking a hand off the wheel to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. For the barest moment, you wish it was your hand doing it, but you quickly lock that thought away. Now is not the time.

You’re out of the neighborhood now, so you stop looking at him and start looking along the streets to see if you can spot Amanda’s car. “There’s not really much out this direction,” you say thoughtfully. “Except…oh.”

“Oh?”

“The bayside.” As you say it, something tells you you’re right. “She goes there sometimes after school to get a burrito.”

“To the bayside we go, then.”

He makes the turn. You keep looking out the windows.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re a great parent,” Damien says. “Amanda’s a wonderful child.”

You peer at him, but he looks sincere. “You’re saying that even though she punched your kid today?” 

“As much as I hate to say this, Lucien had it coming.” He taps a finger on the steering wheel. “He told me what he said to her. He’s very protective of me, and I do appreciate the thought, but that didn’t give him the right to say what he said about you.” 

“She told me what he said as well,” you say, and Damien looks apologetic for a moment, before you continue, “about you moping around all day.”

He colors slightly. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it, yes,” he says delicately.

“Can you tell me one thing?”

“Of course.”

“Did you want to tell me the truth?” 

There’s a silence, then, “Yes and no.”

You frown, but wait for his explanation.

“Yes, because it broke my heart every day knowing I was lying. Yes, because I wanted so badly to be open with you in all things. Yes, because I wanted to be able to meet you as I truly am, without hiding behind pseudonyms.”

“And no?” 

“Because…” He clears his throat. “Because I was terrified that you wouldn’t like what you saw if you knew the real me.”

“Damien…”

“I’m not interesting, or mysterious, or…much of anything, really. I’m just Damien Bloodmarch, a single father with a penchant for the Victorian era and modern storage solutions, and I’ve known many who are disappointed when they find that out.” 

“Damien, I love routine. I love knowing things. I’m never happier than when I’m at home doing a word jumble, or when Amanda gets home at the same time each day. What on _earth_ makes you think I wanted someone mysterious?”

 He glances at you abashedly. 

“I never wanted mystery, or excitement. I only wanted someone who would support me and whom I could support in turn. I wanted someone who would watch movies with me, and understand me, and laugh with me, and cry with me too when I needed it. I wanted _you,_ Damien.”

He takes all that in, then whispers, “Past tense?”

You rake your hands through your hair, exhaling. “I don’t know anymore, Damien. I know that I miss talking with you, and I understand why you didn’t tell me, but just because I understand doesn’t mean I can just let it go right now.” 

He nods, biting his lip again. Bad habit.

“But…maybe I can get there,” you say, casting a look upwards as if some heavenly force can tell you whether you’re making the right decision. “Maybe _we_ can get there. Maybe—Amanda.” 

He blinks. “Maybe Amanda?”

“She’s there,” you say, gesturing urgently. “On that bench next to the harbor.” 

“Oh,” he says, then smiles brilliantly. “Oh! Thank goodness. I’ll park.”

He does so, and the seatbelt locks you in because you try to get out so fast, and it’s all a mess, but it’s fine because she’s here and alive and—

You take a moment before opening the door. “Damien?” 

“Yes?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk later.”

His smile is gentle, warm, as he says, “Don’t even worry about that. Go to your daughter. We can sort everything out later.”

And you smile back, and do exactly that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're almost there folks


	14. Chapter 14

“Amanda,” you say softly, and she whips around, shocked.

“Pops? What are you doing out here?!” 

You sit down next to her, keeping a reasonable distance in case she doesn’t want to be touched. “Looking for you.”

Her face goes through a variety of emotions—surprise, anger, confusion— before settling on something resembling defeat. “I shouldn’t have left the house angry,” she murmurs. “I know how much that gets to you. Are you okay?”

“You don’t have to ask me that,” you say, reaching out to pat her shoulder, then stopping midway and retracting your hand. “I’m so sorry, Amanda. You’re right. You always work so hard for me, and I should be more grateful for that. I’m going to try harder to see myself the way you see me from now on, because your opinion is so important to me, and I want you to know that, okay? And it’s going to be difficult, and I’m going to mess up, but I’m going to try for you.”

“And for yourself,” Amanda corrects.

“And for myself,” you repeat. “Deal?”

She reaches for your hand, which has been floundering uselessly at your side, and shakes it firmly. “Deal.”

You smile at each other, then she sighs and lays her head on your shoulder. “I’m sorry too. I know that it’s hard to not give yourself a rough time. I do it sometimes too.”

“I clearly need to tell you how perfect you are more often,” you joke.

“You can’t just compliment someone out of hating themselves, and that’s why I’m sorry,” she says, looking up at you. “I kept hoping that if I told you enough times you were fine that you’d believe it, but I always knew that wasn’t how it worked. I think I was madder at myself for not being able to fix things than I was at you.” She pauses, then grins. “Well, no. I was really mad at you too.”

“Rightfully so. Just…in the future, can we try to talk things out? You can go to your room and scream, and I can stay in the living room and throw around a pillow or two, and we can both calm down, but…I don’t want to risk losing you. I was really scared, Manda.”

“Yeah, I know,” she says, nestling further into your shoulder. “I’ll stay next time. Although let the record show that I did get here safely.”

“The record does indeed show that, yes.”

“I also only yelled three curse words,” she says proudly, then whispers, “I said the rest in my head.”

“The record will also show your admirable restraint. I usually average five.”

There’s a comfortable silence, then, “So, Damien.” 

You color. “Yes. Damien.”

“He’s here.”

“Your powers of observation are almost worryingly astute. He drove me.” 

She wiggles her eyebrows at you. “Just drove?”

You raise an eyebrow at her. “What else would he have done, the hula?”

“I was thinking more along the line of gross Dad smooches.”

“First point, Dad smooches are beautiful. Second, there were none. We just talked.”

“And?”

“And we’re going to talk more later.”

“Are we talking later as in a few hours later or later as in late at night when nobody is awake to hear curse words spoken in a passionate moment of a different kind?”

The color in your face deepens, and you feel yourself warm. “Amanda!”

“Oh, please. That’s nothing compared to the books Damien recommends you,” she says dismissively. “Also, you didn’t answer the question.”

You exhale slowly. “The former, _obviously._ I don’t even know if I should forgive him yet.”

She shrugs. “I think you should.” 

You look down at her curiously. “Really? I thought you were even more pissed off at him than I was.” 

“Yeah, but you really like him, don’t you?”

You lean back against the bench. It’s proving to be a bit hard on your back. “Yeah,” you murmur. “I really do.”

“Then there’s your answer. I was mad about what he did to you, but he was good for you, Pops. Isn’t that supposed to be a sign of true love or whatever, that you make each other better people?”

“Says the girl who’s never been in love.”

“No, says Teen Vogue. They do great journalism these days.”

You put your arm around Amanda’s shoulder and hug her into you. “Maybe you and Teen Vogue are right.”

“Usually are.”

You look back in the direction of the car and see Damien staring at you fondly. He turns a bit pink, as if embarrassed to have been caught, then waves.

“Yeah,” you say, waving back and smiling just as fondly. “That’s true.”

 

* * *

 

Amanda drives back on her own, and Damien drives just behind her to the cul-de-sac. He’s about to drop you off at your house, but you say, “Hey, Damien? Do you mind if I check out your house?”

He blinks at you. “Is that okay?”

“I’m feeling brave today,” you say.

“You’ve always been brave,” he says, gazing at you, then beaming. “But yes. I would love to show you my place of residence.”

You walk into the house, then, at Damien’s insistence, sit down in the parlor while he makes some tea. “Peppermint is good for the nerves,” he says stubbornly. “You’ve had an exhilarating day. Please, let me get you some.”

He comes back in a few minutes with a perfectly brewed cup of peppermint tea and a bowl of sugar cubes, all put together on a tray. He waits for you to take a drink of your cup, then begins to sip his own delicately.

You’re suddenly nervous. “You have a lovely home,” you say weakly.

He brightens. “Oh, thank you! I’d love to show you more of it if you ever were interested. I’m very proud of my abode.”

You nod, taking a huge gulp of tea.

“I’m presuming, however, that you didn’t come over here just to compliment my parlor and to drink tea,” he says, looking at you pointedly.

“Yeah, that’s true,” you say quietly. “I guess what I wanted to say is…I want to try to make things right with you. Like I said earlier, I don’t know if I can forgive you at this exact moment, but I do want to be able to forgive you eventually, and when that happens…I want to be able to go back to where we were. And maybe, I mean…if you still want to. To go forward with, uh. Whatever it was there was between us.”

Damien is starting to look a little teary around the corners of his eyes. “My dear, I would love nothing better.”

“Cool,” you say eloquently, then take another gulp of tea.

 

* * *

 

Another few weeks pass, but this time you savor each day. You can only manage going over to Damien’s house a few times, on good days, but he shows you all of the rooms there, and the rest of the time he comes over to yours and you just talk, with no barriers between you.

Forgiveness comes slowly, but naturally. He’s clearly respectful of your boundaries, and he works so hard to be good to you, and to be genuinely himself in every interaction with you. You tell him you’ve forgiven him on a Friday night, and he legitimately starts crying. You laugh, surprised, and he too laughs through his tears.

The next day, you hear a knock on your door bright and early. Amanda offers to get it, and she opens the front door only to find… 

“Oh. Uh. Hey, Lucien,” she says awkwardly.

“Oh. Hey, Amanda.” He shuffles, then says, “I’m sorry for what I said about your dad. He’s cool.”

“I’m like 25% sorry for punching your nose,” Amanda says dutifully.

“Amanda,” you say, appearing behind her. “We discussed this.” 

“Fine, 40%,” she acknowledges. 

“That’s fair,” Lucien says, kicking his feet against the ground. “Uh, I have another bouquet for you from my dad. He says you should tell me if you’re feeling good enough to go over his house today, but if you’re not he’ll come over.”

“Wait, what do these flowers mean?” you ask. 

He sighs, rolling his eyes. “God, this should not be my job. There’s, uh, white camellia, that’s ‘you’re adorable’. Lily of the Valley for ‘you’ve made my life complete’. And…” He frowns. “Seriously, do I have to do this last one?”

“I’d really appreciate it.”

“Ugh. These little arbutus flowers mean ‘thee only do I love’.”  

You take that in, then smile brilliantly. “I think I can manage a trip to you guys’ house today.”

“…Right. Mind some company, Amanda?” Lucien asks, sounding thoroughly disgusted already.

Amanda’s grinning at you. “As long as you don’t mind watching surrealist Youtube videos.” 

You jog over to Damien’s house and knock. He’s waiting at the door for you—Lucien must have texted him or something—and you immediately lean in—

“Wait,” he says softly. “I need to say something first.”

You frown. “Are you hiding a fourth identity from me?” 

“No. It’s nothing bad, just…something I need to get off my chest.” He takes a heavy breath, then starts, “You are something truly special, and I mean that with all the sincerity of my heart. It takes such a big person to forgive someone that has wronged you, and I will spend as long as you give me making up for that offense. I am…so grateful for you. You’re so understanding, and strong, and handsome, and…I honestly think I may have fallen for you from that first letter, that first message, that first phone call.” He steps closer to you and takes your face in his hands. You close your eyes, but then he continues. “I’ve always fallen fast and hard, but never so much as with you, and—” 

“Damien.” You laugh, wiping a tear away from your eye. “That was beautiful and all, but please kiss me already.”

“Oh.” He looks surprised, then pleased, and then he leans forward and presses his lips against yours. Once, twice, three times, and then four, and then, well, you stop counting.

(Lucien and Amanda eventually get tired of peering through the window at the events occurring, especially when, laughing, you push Damien back into the doorway and close the door.

“So, you said you had some Youtube videos to show me,” Lucien eventually says.

Amanda nods emphatically. “Oh, definitely. I have this great one of high-def jello bouncing around the screen.”

“Cool,” Lucien says, and they settle back onto the couch to watch some bouncing jello. It’s your favorite video, and you’re sad to miss it when they tell you later, but honestly? Your new favorite view is right in front of you.)

 

* * *

 

You’re not really certain how, after years and years of being scared, you managed to find Damien, but you did. You love him as D. Bloodmarch and Damien and dbnevermore, but most importantly, you love him as Damien Bloodmarch, a beautiful man who’s incredibly passionate and kind and who loves you as you are and were and as you will someday become. There are still bad days, sure, and days where you fight (but never leave the house angry), and days where you stay in the house, cuddled up in a blanket and Damien’s arms. But there are good times, too, as Damien promised, and you’re beginning to think this all might be exactly what you deserve.

They say that doing something once is a mistake, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a habit. You’ve fallen in love with Damien four times, and more each passing day, and you wonder what they’d call that.

You know what you’d call it, though, if you had to put a word to it. You think you’d call it happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think you all know the jello video in question but if not [it's here and it's one of my favorites](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bco4xBelLWw)
> 
> if you've ever read any of my other fics you would know i love bookending things and also really incredibly cheesy endings so that's what ur gettin here
> 
> anyway thank you all so much! i'm so grateful to all of you for reading, giving kudos, and commenting! you're all so sweet and you're definitely the reason i managed to finish this story so quickly! hopefully we'll all see each other on another fic soon!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for dropping by! if u want to check out my tumblr, it's [anuninterestingperson](http://anuninterestingperson.tumblr.com)!


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